


Thaw

by rubygirl29



Category: Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 15:07:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/321194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubygirl29/pseuds/rubygirl29
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry returns to Chicago as a cold Winter's Knight</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thaw

**Author's Note:**

> Set post Ghost Story. Spoilers for that book.

Winter has never been my favorite season. As a child, while my parents were alive, I found it enchanting. As a half-starved seventeen year-old on the streets, it was my mortal enemy. My enemy saved my life. It sent me into the military to escape the relentless grip, but it left me scarred. Even now, ensconced in more luxury than one man has a right to own, I feel the ache of those clutching fingers it in my bones. More than once, Hendricks has told me I should go to Florida or the Caribbean or Hawaii. He knows I won't. He knows my absence from Chicago would be far too dangerous for me ... for my city ... now that Harry Dresden lies beneath the icy waters of Lake Michigan.

How long has it been? Weeks? Months? It doesn't matter. There are people, Karrin Murphy for one, who believe that I am responsible for the bullet through Harry's heart. How could I be when the news of his death was like an icy bullet through mine? I don't believe I have been warm since that day.

The weather isn't helping. It's been the coldest winter in Chicago in 10 years. Cold, but very little snow, which somehow makes my aches more intense. Maybe it's old age creeping up on me, but I doubt it. The ache is an absence of warmth. An absence of Harry Dresden who had been fool enough to let himself get shot.

I don't let myself say that Harry is dead. Death is so final, and Wizards have ways out of it that even I am aware of; Harry must know them all, damn him. So far, he had remained mute and as cold as the waters of the lake.

"Boss, you want that fire lit?" Hendricks asks. I'm standing there, rubbing my aching hand absently, my coat still one. I blink and things focus again.

"Yes. Thank you." Lighting the fire requires the push of a button. Harry could light it with a flick of a finger. Harry could fill me with warmth with the touch of his breath. Hendricks helps me out of my cashmere coat. He hangs it up and looks at me.

"Cook says dinner will be ready when you are."

I wasn't hungry, but I'm not stupid or arrogant enough to think I can survive without nourishment just because Harry isn't there to bully me into eating. I change from my business suit into jeans and a sweater, and inform my staff that I am ready to eat. Then I am alone.

 _Boef Bourguignon_. Harry would be in heaven with a bowl of this and some of Mac's ale. I have Guinness, which is as close as I can get without invading Mac's place. It's not likely I'll be welcome there. Mac thinks I killed Harry.

I finish eating and put my dishes in the dishwasher. I expect my employees to be neat. I can do no less. Sitting in front of the fire, I stretch out towards the warmth and eventually, I lie down on the couch where Harry and I ...

I hear a muffled _thud_ in the vestibule. I sit up, retrieving my Sig from the drawer in the side table where I keep it. Violence is never far from me and I prefer to be prepared. I walked silently to the door. Nothing ... except for a chill draft like the breath of Winter itself. The doorknob is like a block of ice. I grip it, feel it begin to turn in my hand and at the moment the knob engages the lock, I yank it open, the Sig lined up to deliver a lethal shot.

"I've already been shot once, I'd rather it not be you who kills me, John." Harry Dresden sways and drops like a felled tree at my feet.

I might kill him out of spite, I think as I kneel beside him. He looks like he had been carved out of the ice; flakes on his eyelashes, his skin rhimed with frost, his hair tipped with silver. I touch him, and oddly, he's warmer than I had expected. Not a ghost but Winter's Knight. "Oh, Harry," I sigh. I take out my cell phone. "Hendricks. I need some help. I'm fine ... no guns."

Hendricks is there in half a minute. Even though I had said no guns, he has his drawn. He takes one look at Dresden and goes white as a ghost. "Holy Crap, Boss." It's the first time I've heard him even approach an emotional outburst. I raise a brow and he stows his gun.

"Help me get him over to the couch so he can thaw out." Hendricks lifts Harry's long body in his arms like a child and carries him over to the couch.

"He doesn't feel like a ghost," he says.

"No. I think I can take it from here. Thank you."

"Goodnight, sir." His eyes are as frosty as Harry's skin. I'll worry about Hendricks later. I have a feeling that he won't be out of hailing range. Meanwhile, I have a lanky, frozen wizard to thaw out.

Looking at him in the firelight, there is already a hint of warmth on his skin. I don't want to wrestle him out of his clothes ... yet. I have chemical hot packs in the medical kit in my bathroom. It's not paranoia. It's that damned cold outside. I get the packs, crack them and tuck them into his armpits and groin.

I also have one of those reflective thermal blankets that I cover him with. I pour two snifters of brandy, put one on the coffee table and sit back in an armchair, cradling my own in my hands, and waiting for Harry to wake up.

I try to be clinical, to be detached, but I'm fixated on the rise and fall of his chest; the incontrovertible evidence that he is, indeed, alive, and not some ghostly spirit come to haunt me. Harry, unlike Scrooge's Marley, is not my conscience. We have been sinners together in hate and in love. There are no illusions.

I watch the color creep slowly back to him; his hands, his throat, his pale, ice-touched cheeks. He doesn't look dead, now. He looks like he's sleeping. His lips pink up and I wait, wondering if they would be cold beneath mine. Lastly, the frost tipping his lashes melts into moisture and his eyes move beneath his lids. He stirs, stretches and yawns.

I kneel beside the couch and hold the brandy snifter beneath his nose. He takes a deep breath, drawing in the scent of the liquor. I dip my finger into the liquid and slide it across his lips. The tip of his tongue sweeps across the glissade of liquor and I repeat the action.

"Harry?"

His eyes open. "John." They are calm, dark. I had expected shock. Instead he grins. "Surprised to see me?"

"Seeing as how we assumed you were dead ... yes, though nothing about you surprises me. Particularly since your body was never found."

He frowned. "No, of course not. I was with --" He stops, bites back the name. I have a good idea what he had been about to say, so I speak it; rage and despair warring in me that I don't want him to see.

"Mab. She made you Winter Knight." I'm seething with anger at the Fae. at their cavalier treatment of human emotions, of their disregard for _anything_ beyond their own selfish purposes.

"It wasn't like I had a choice," Harry says harshly. He sits up too quickly and then falls back against the pillows, "Whoa ... not ready for that yet."

My anger recedes into concern. He looks terrible. "Drink your brandy. Are you hungry?"

"That's a specious question. I'm starving. You know me."

"Do I know you, Winter Knight?"

Harry's eyes darken. "Don't call me that. Not here. I'm Harry -- the same stupid, stubborn, able to fry every appliance in this place at the blink of an eye wizard that you know and love."

"I never said that." It's a mild protest and Harry gives me a superior smirk.

He's an exasperating man. "Do you want some of Mac's ale?"

"Not until after I drink this." He takes another sip. "Ah, John. You know how to live."

I grimace. "That's because I've seen too much death not to appreciate it."

"How's the empire doing?"

"I'm still on the throne," I say lightly. I'll let him speculate on the cost. "I'll heat up that dinner."

Harry eats the reheated _Boef Bourguignon_ and apple pie with the concentration of a soldier having a meal before heading off to the front. I know that feeling. Finally, he sits back with his fingers laced over his full stomach, regarding me with his dark eyes. "Thank you."

"Mab didn't feed you?" Harry raises a brow. "Right. Why be any more beholden to her than you already are? That's either pride or stupidity."

"I think of it as self-preservation, thank you very much." He stands up. "This is where I say good-night and head on home, if I had a home to go to, that is."

"I didn't rebuild your apartment. I didn't turn it into a god-damned memorial to you."

"That's disappointing."

"Fuck you, Harry." I'm tired of this. "You're welcome to the couch. I'm going to bed."

"John --"

I turn slowly. "I thought you were dead. Everybody did. You left us damaged, Harry. Bleeding and raw and cold."

"Don't tell me about _cold!_." He's hurt and furious. When he stands, he looms over me.

I've faced down bigger men than him. I don't step back. I fist his shirt in my hands, pull him down and kiss him. His lips are cool, his skin is cold as the grave. I gasp and back off. "You feel like you're dead." I wipe the chill from my mouth, wondering if I had imagined his warmth. I shiver, and his eyes widen. "Turn up the fire if you want. Goodnight, Harry."

"Goodnight, John." He sounds desolate. He's standing in front of the fire looking forlorn and far too thin. No wonder he's freezing; he has no body fat to hold in the heat.

"For God's sake, Dresden!" I throw up my hands and surrender. "Come to bed."

At first it's a like trying to cuddle up to an icicle. I'm wearing flannel pajamas instead of skin out of self-defense, but eventually, slowly, Harry begins warming, his body starting to relax beneath down comforters and his own layer of flannel. He sighs, and God help me, he nestles around me, one long arm draping across my stomach, his hand resting on my cock. _Oh, Harry ..._ I hold his hand there, and with his now warm breath ghosting across my neck, I fall asleep.

It seems we have both thawed.

 **The End**


End file.
